


Maybe Gods

by tokyoblackbird



Series: Albatross [3]
Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2421266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyoblackbird/pseuds/tokyoblackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which genderbent Mesopotamians. One-shot. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Gods

**Maybe Gods**

**[2200 B.C.E.]**

* * *

_The harvest left no food for you to eat_

-Alex Winston, "The Cave" (cover)

* * *

The ram's horns sounded again and Fai ran, the wildflowers falling out of her fair hair, trampled on the stone path. Her friends, handmaidens to the Queen, walked far behind, backs straight, heads held high, leading the speckled bulls toward the Temple of Nanna, god of the moon. Their fresh red dresses stood out starkly in the procession; they glittered with gold jewelry. Fai gathered her skirts in her hands, the scratches on her legs a brighter shade of red. She had fallen when he grabbed her. She could still hear him calling her name.

"Stop running, damn you!"

She wanted to.

* * *

The spring moon had hidden her face behind clouds, the night before, when Fai met Kuro in the temple courtyard. They had hidden themselves in the branches of a fig tree. "The priests say the god mourns for his daughter," Fai said. "The Queen must dine with the Annunaki before our harvest can begin."

Kuro was the King's youngest bodyguard. He had black hair and perpetually furrowed brows. Only fifteen, he was fierce like a wild dog. "My parents are afraid for the harvest," he said. "They say the Queen's death is a curse, and more will follow." He reached a hand toward Fai's hair, hesitated, drew back.

On the path below the tree, acolytes and slaves rushed back and forth, carrying jars of oil, barley, and wine. A stooped priestess sprinkled the path with water and oil, chanting under her breath. Queen Enanatuma had died during the New Year's festival. During the usual time of celebration, there would be a funeral as well. Even the elders had never lived in such a confused time. No one dared to laugh or cry.

"But I'm not afraid of the gods," Kuro said.

At Kuro's words, Fai felt fear itch in her bones. It was the rainy season, but the clouds only gathered.

"Our gods are not merciful." Fai smiled. "Aren't you lonely in your fearlessness?"

Kuro began plucking figs from a nearby branch and dropping them in the fold of his linen skirt. Just casually stealing temple figs. "I'm not alone. I see your idiot face right in front of me." He peered through the leaves. "Do you see any baskets in the grass?"

"Don't you like my idiot face? Oh—Careful, Kuro, they'll see us."

"Only an idiot would like your idiot face." He grunted. "Fine. Hold this." He took off his linen cape. Soon, Fai had a heavy bundle of figs wrapped in linen.

" _You_  hold these." She forced the figs back in his hands.

Ordinarily, he would have growled, "Hell, no," and scrambled out of the tree. She would have thrown temple figs at his head, with a hurried prayer for each. He would turn to chased her, swinging his spear, always an inch off target, a predictable terror, as she cut through gardens and shielded herself with furniture. Fai loved to play at courage. She would scream with a laughter she knew was wicked and the servants would scold and pursue, but no one would catch them.

They knew the empty cattle stalls, the kindly priestesses, the forgotten passageways out—They had children's wisdom and children's luck. They caught each other.

Kuro took the figs patiently.

"Give me your hand."

"I'm holding your stupid figs—"

Fai slipped her silver bracelet on Kuro's wrist, dropped her gold leaf necklace over his head. She gave him her three rings, though they only fit on his pinky finger. Two were gold and one was precious lapis lazuli, like a curl of old Nanna's beard.

"I don't need these," he snapped. "Fai..." He couldn't find the words. He scowled. She noticed for the first time the fine hairs growing on his jaw and lip.

"Thank your parents for me."

A nightingale began to sing from its cage in a noble's bedroom—bright fast chirping. Fai remembered when Kuro's parents had brought her, a ten-year-old orphan, home to the palace. She had been doing well, by herself, in the city's outskirts, sleeping by the riverside, catching fish and stealing grain.

Kuro's parents had heard her singing.

Fai was given to the Queen. A singing gift.

"Show her to her chambers," the Queen had said. And Kuro had pushed past the courtiers and taken her hand.

Fai had been dazzled by the court's linen robes in red and purple, by the women's hair braided and held together with gold nets, and the men's curled beards threaded with silver ribbons. By the stern stone lamassu with their cat toes and delicately feathered wings, guarding each doorway, guarding against evil. She tripped over her feet staring. She thought she had fallen into Allatu's realm, where the coughing beggars and the flood-drowned and locust-starved came to rest at last.

Her first inclination was to look for her parents.

But it was just a palace. Every day another new body was dragged out. Few lived past forty harvests. Everyone was always afraid and praying.

People came and went and she became content not knowing anyone's name. She was so accustomed to being alone.

* * *

The servants were reduced to shadows carrying candles past windows. Fai's cheek was red where she had leaned against Kuro's shoulder, a kind of vigil. He was warm and sturdy. She would have liked to fall asleep. She rubbed her eyes.

"Well, goodbye, Kuro."

"I'll see you tomorrow. Right here." Neither of them moved to leave.

The sun caught red in Fai's hair. "Why so tense?" she whispered.

"Fai...I..."

She put a hand on his cheek and kissed him. His hands were still full, but he leaned in. She felt him breathe a long, shaky sigh.

"I like your idiot face," he muttered.

"Ha! You must be an idiot then. But it's alright, I've always known."

She hopped off the tree and left him with the figs, with everything she owned.

"Fai, do you love me?"

* * *

Fai ran, faster now. She could hear the priests chanting from the ziggurat; the beating of drums and the crowd clapping their hands and stamping their feet. The Queen's procession, far ahead, walked to her tomb, making the path smooth for her corpse. The Queen's singers trailed behind their Queen, and with them rose the chorus of mourning songs: " _Blessed of Inanna, beloved of Enlil, daughter of Nanna…_ " They had wanted her to sing, and she wanted to sing. So the harvest would be bountiful, so Kuro would live old enough to see fig fruit bear fig trees despite his blaspheming and his recklessness. She wanted to be good.

Hers were not forgiving gods. People always came and went.

But she was so out of breath and she was late.

She pushed through a herd of sheep, jostled servants carrying jars of beer on their shoulders. Finally she reached the line of singers, holding small clay cups of poison.

"Fai," the lyre player said. "Where have you been?" He handed her an extra cup, and began to play a quick tumble of notes, his own fate balanced cleverly on his head.

"All those stupid cows got in my way." She giggled. She began to sing. " _Blessed of Inanna, beloved..._ "

"Fai! Damn you!"

She did not turn her head. The Queen's tomb was a square hole carved out of the ground. Around the rim of the tomb, revelers set up banquets, cut meats roasting at nearby spits, and poured wine carelessly, splashing it on the dusty earth. Far in the distant temple, the high priest beheaded a sheep, the annual scapegoat. Reed pipes trilled bright and fast, and brighter still, Fai's voice. She forced a smile and danced in circles, making the lyre player laugh.

"Fai!" Kuro fought through the parade of the Queen's attendants.

The procession of attendants descended the stone steps, into the grave. Fai and the singers ceased their song. They knelt in tidy rows around their queen. The lyre player put down his lyre. They bowed their heads in the pit. 

Kuro pushed past the onlookers and leaped into the pit. He landed heavily on hands and knees. The singers startled. Kuro ran to Fai.

"What are you doing?" Fai hissed.

He tried to force the cup from her hands, but she held on. "This is the right thing to do," she insisted. "It's stupid to not be afraid."

Another bull groaned as it was slaughtered for the funeral feast. Its body hit the ground heavily and the revelers cut it open so its blood ran into the pit. "I don't want you to go." His voice was hoarse from yelling. "I don't fear the gods."

"Stupid," she said. "You're so stupid."

"I was going to marry you. Does that mean anything to you?"

The wail of the horn. As one, the Queen's servants raised their cups to drink. "Kuro—please."

The Queen's servants trembled together. Bodies collapsed into the dirt. Some coughed and gasped, some brought their lips to the dust in prayer. Others lay down, stared skyward, and waited. The lyre player swayed and fell, over his lyre. The drunk spectators gathered about the pit cheered, their hands greasy with roast meat. The humidity painted everyone in a sheen of sweat.

Kuro and Fai warmed the poison between their clasped hands. The poison danced in its cup.

Kuro knocked the cup from Fai's hand.

"Let's go. Let's get out of here." He combed the last of the wildflowers from her hair. Guards dragged bodies of servants bleeding from their heads, laid them down neatly, side by side in the Queen's tomb. The spectators had begun to kick in piles of dirt, throw in flowers, jewelry, stones. Somewhere, screams. "The gods can kill us if they want," Kuro said. "But I want to die with you."

"I want you to live," Fai said.

"Let's go, Fai. We have to run."

She shook her head.

A guard approached them with a hammer and a spike.

"If you love me, get up." He yanked on her arm, even as the guard took Fai's other arm and shoved Kuro away. "If you love me, choose me!"

"I am choosing you," Fai said, with a smile. "Just wait. We will meet again—"

**Author's Note:**

> And so they keep reincarnating and running into each other... Hence all the random AUs I write...and are ever written, even.


End file.
